1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a drawer having the rear and side panels thereof fabricated from a foamed plastic slab. More particularly, the invention relates to a drawer having rear and side panels made from a single slab of extruded foamed rigid poly(vinyl chloride) having a reinforcing dense core and a densified outer skin with a simulated wood grain pattern thereon.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The desirability of having a drawer or drawer frame which would be durable, inexpensive, require less storage space and be simple to fabricate and assemble has long been recognized.
Prefabricated plastic drawers have been produced in the past by deep drawing and injection molding processes. However, such methods required the use of a variety of expensive dies, molds and raw material. In addition, exorbitant shipping and storage space was required, and the drawers so formed looked, felt, sounded and handled like plastic.
An attempt to correct the foregoing problems is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,462,208, wherein a drawer form is fabricated from an extruded profiled sheet of plastic by cutting appropriately shaped blanks therefrom and bending the plastic to form a drawer having back and side walls integral with a bottom portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,312,516 also discloses a method for forming a plastic drawer wherein the back and side walls thereof are formed from an extruded profiled plastic board having an outwardly protruding channeled rib in its lower portion and an outwardly projecting flange at its upper edge. The profiled board is heated at the points which are to form the rear corners of the drawer, and the board is bent at these points to form the drawer frame. By this method, drawers of different sizes can be produced without changing the profile of the board by simply cutting it correspondingly.
While the foregoing inventions constitute an advance in the direction of providing an inexpensive, durable plastic drawer which would be easier to ship, store and assemble, there still remained the need for a drawer which would incorporate all of these good features and yet more closely resemble wood in appearance, size to weight ratio, feel, sound and thickness, and which could be worked like wood with normal wood-working tools.